Black & Blue | Dogfish Head Craft Brewery

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Notes / Commercial Description:
Black & Blue is a Belgian-style golden ale fermented with blackberries and blueberries. Because we dose Black & Blue with real berries -- rather than artificial flavoring -- the fruit comes through in the flavor, not just the aroma.

The pureed berries are added as the beer leaves the brewhouse. In fermentation, the yeast -- the same one we use in Red & White and Pangaea -- feeds on sugars from the barley and the berries, giving Black & Blue a unique complexity and a high ABV.

I am continuing with my bottle purge and when a friend said that he wanted to come over and say goodbye before heading off to graduate school at U of FL, I decided to break out something that had recently surfaced from the depths of my cellar.

Once the cap had been Pop!ped, I employed a gentle pour so as not to disturb any potential lees. Color was a pinkish-amber with a good bit of floaties in evidence. Nose had a great preserve-like fruitiness. I would have guessed blueberry, but black or red raspberry? I cannot say for sure. My late-paternal grandmother grew red raspberries in her garden, hence my allusion to preserves. I got a skim of pinkish wisps for head. Mouthfeel was medium. Taste was of mixed berries, very fruity, but hard to discern which ones were involved in the production of this beer. Label read 10% ABV, but it was as mellow as all get-out! I recently drank some aged Fort, and despite its age, it was still rather hot. This was very pleasant by comparison. Finish was semi-dry and actually more vinous that beer-like. Wild!

Treated as a straight up fruit beer, this was poured into a pint glass. The appearance was a glossy purple to brown color with a slight transparency about it. Floaties bounce off of carbonation rising to fill a one finger white to off white foamy head. It dissipates at a nice pace and leaves a small fairly thick ring of foamy lacing around the glass. The smell starts off with a some blackberries and blueberries (obviously, right!) and blends into a light caramel to biscuity maltiness. The taste was a nice mix between the blackberries and blueberries to a little bit of spiciness from the Belgian yeast. Yields more to the biscuity side than the caramel side in the taste. Its somewhat fruity in the aftertaste yet allows the spice to hit in the finish nicely. On the palate, this one sat about a light to medium in body with a decent sessionability about it. Carbonation feels good as it is and falls in and around my tongue appropriately. Overall, as a fruit beer, it works, with the Belgian spices snapping in and around my tongue, it wants to let you know, "hey, I’m not just any old fruit beer." I’d have this again, nice beer.

Got this in a flight of 4 aged beers at dogfish head
2009 bottled, drinking 2017
Look - copper and thin
Smell - sour and tart funkiness
Taste - definitely taste the blue and blackberries, pretty funky
Feel - thin syrup almost no carbonation
Overall - interesting. It'll be cool to re check this out at home and see what I say different

On draft at Lexington Beerworks
A-pours a ruby amber with very nice carbonation and short white head
S-Smells extremely fruity with a little bit of funk
M-med to full body a lot of carbonation on the tongue
T-Very fruit forward with both the blueberries and blackberries. Almost a sour beer. No alcohol flavor even with an abv at 10%
O-Overall just a good beer. Not really my type of beer but was good.

Copper to amber in color with plenty of floaties within. There's a quarter inch of creamy beige on top. The nose is an assault of very tart blackberries and blueberries along with some tart Belgian yeast. The taste is a blend of sweet blueberries, tart blackberries, and tart Belgian yeast. The mouth is fairly carbonated and dry.